ANALOGY

Let me give you an Analogy

Imagine someone battering a drum kit with a pair of baseball bats, with the most basic of timekeeping abilities and no understanding of what a fill is supposed to sound like. Your 4 year-old nephew, perhaps.

Got that?

OK, now add a bass player who only knows where the root notes are, a guitarist who only knows the standard set of chords, and a keyboard player happiest sticking with just the one chord.

Your 4 year-old nephew's friends, perhaps.

Now, add a female vocalist who fancies herself an opera singer, but can't really control the vibrato, only has a 4-note range, and has the habit of interjecting yeah! at funny moments. At least, I laughed.

Give her a tone a bit like Mariska Veres, with a worse handling of English words - but really make that vibrato bad, to stop it sounding so cute you can forgive it.

Now give the band a 2-chord jam to noodle along to, with insistent bash-bash rhythms, plenty of pentatonic blufferama and duff notes in the solos, and you end up with something like this.

No wonder it needed the band (without wishing to seem sexist, but specifically the female vocalist) to be naked on the cover.

Prog Rock?

Not on your nelly!

True, it comes together every now and again to sound a bit like those movies we never watch - you know, the ones with naked vampires in - but musically, it's as satisfying as a piece of damp toast.

Taken as a piece of musical comedy, there are moments galore - Indian Meditation being absolutely crammed with them, from the laughable drum entry, to the side-splitting vocals. Maybe that's a bit cruel - but some of the musicianship really is that poor - and it need not matter, if competent musicianship is not what you prize in music.

As lightweight entertainment, when taken as a roughly-hewn piece of psychedelia that might have clawed its way out of the ground in 1967, it's actually not bad - quite engaging from the point of view of waiting for the next faux-pas, and actually being pleasantly surprised by some of the beautiful sonic textures that pop out of the general naive muddling around.

When you put it into perspective, among the great Progressive Rock that was released in 1972, however, this does seem a bit of a joke.

Thick as a brick perhaps...?

I can't really call this album poor in itself, as it's a very enjoyable listen, in the right frame of mind, with only as few moments of real cringing. But no serious progger would actually want this in their collection - unless they were one of those people that just buys albums for the cover... and even then...

Does it bear analogy?

ANALOGY was not a child of Germany in a strict sense. The members were german (with one exception) but never had an appearance there as a band. They worked together in North Italy since 1968 using different names. The eponymous debut was released in 1972 and attracted attention also because of the use of some nude pictures. On the original vinyl release ANALOGY is presenting seven songs with a krautrock attitude, an impressive mix of psychedelic, symphonic, jazz and blues rock. There is a lot of great hammond appearances to point out and the vocals are very unique - most likely comparable with Inga Rumpf or Annie Haslam.

Fine contributions by all band members are guaranteed on the first track which stands for the special style of the band. Dark reflections has a diversified song structure based on a blues theme and contains magical vocals, a dramatic drum work, symphonic organ and a jazzy guitar. Weeping may endure switches between calm vocal parts and heavy simultan hammond and guitar interaction. Indian meditation has transitions to american psych and a fantastic organ part by Nicola Pankoff. The title song might be the highlight for many listeners. He was finally responsible for changing the band name to ANALOGY anyhow. The song is instrumental epic with very interesting psychedelic guitar work but cannot convince me as much as the first songs. The same with the following The year's at the spring which remembers me at Jefferson Airplane. Pan-am flight 249 finally is a bonus track for the Garden Of Delights CD release of the year 2002 - another blues based song nearly on the same level and in the manner of the opener.

A fine debut by ANALOGY with a special mix of styles which deserves a lot more attraction - 3.5 stars.

The sound on the debut by german band Analogy is dominated by the vocals of Jutta Nienhaus and Hammond by Nikola Pankoff. Obviously their style had been inspired by late 60's psychedelic rock featuring some folksy and as well some Krautrock elements.

Already the opener is a quite nice one with a rather sluggish and dragging rhythm and strong vocals fitting perfectly together. In Weeping May Endure vocals are reaching at times some higher pitch, some fellows might have problems with but they are a nice contrast to the rocking guitar play and the roaring Hammond sound. Indian Meditation sounds even more psychedelic and Martin Thurn's guitar play is a bit reminiscent to early Floyd. There's also some flute added by him. After the short instrumental Tin´s Song there is the quite long title track which is deeply in the vein of late 60's psyche rock. Finally there is the very dynamic The Years At The Spring and the nice song Pan-Am Flight 249.

SUMMARY

ANALOGY were presenting here very good psyche rock rooted deeply in late 60's, but sounding a bit dated for the time being. Their music cannot be compared with the one of classic symphonic prog, so I rather doubt whether this record could be called an essential one in this subgenre or in general. But anyway a VERY GOOD one and an enjoyable listen.

This forgotten swiss band based in Italy made this strong album in 1972. The original cover shows the memberes naked, with the beautiful Jutta Nienhaus in evidence. Her theatrical voice reminds me sometimes the great Nico. The music? Lot of hammond and dark atmospheres. There are no fillers here. Good.